Mark Rushton - Under Treetops

Under Treetops - Mark Rushton
4 minutes and 40 seconds, 192kb-encoded MP3

"Under Treetops" is a free ambient/field recording track released on December 19, 2008. It features low pulses, fog, rain sweep, wind chimes, bird song, and air.

Available on the Free MP3 page.

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Mark Rushton - Chuck Bird MP3

Mark Rushton - Chuck Bird

6 minutes and 17 seconds, 128kb-encoded MP3

From the album Flow

Available on the Free MP3 page from November 11 to November 12, 2008.

Remembering our friend Chuck Bird (November 11, 1957 - November 12, 2006) who died after a 30 year battle with diabetes in Nashville.

Free MP3: Field Recording (Rochester Avenue)

I have a new Free MP3, a 3 minute and 50 second field recording of me driving down Rochester Avenue in Iowa City around 7pm on Thursday, October 9th.

Download here. 192kb encoded MP3 and just a little over 5 MB.

Can I Have Your Attention Please? (a field recording)

Mark Rushton - Can I Have Your Attention Please?
(2:47), 192kb-encoded MP3, 4MB

This is a field recording made on May 23, 2008 at the elementary school near my house. The principal was getting the kids were getting ready for a school parade. It was raining slightly. Most of the kids had some kind of noisemaker in their mouth which made for a bizarre whistling sound. I'm walking away towards the end of the recording.

Mark Rushton Free Mp3s.

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Mark Rushton - Field Recording on April 20, 2008 (Frogs)

Mark Rushton - April 20, 2008 Field Recording
Recorded and edited by Mark Rushton
(5:00), 192kb-encoded MP3, 6MB

This was recorded in my backyard the night of Sunday, April 20, 2008.

Last year, after I moved, I had planned to make a series of field recordings from my back yard, which is next to a series of wooded areas and in-town farm land. I put out a couple of recordings as free MP3s, mostly of crickets and katydids. Even though I recorded every couple of weeks until October, some of the recordings weren't good. Later in the year, I got a Zoom H2 (which I love...), but after the first frost the sounds were over.

Here it is in 2008 and I plan to do recording on a bi-weekly basis. Each one will be edited down to 5 minutes.

We had a bad winter. One of the coldest in decades and the 3rd snowiest in 140 years of record-keeping. February had the most snowfall ever for that month. It was a long time melting, and now we've had week after week of heavy rains.

What do you end up with? I think that sounds like frogs. And note my neighbor's sump pump hose draining just after the beginning.

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Mentions and Plays

A nice mention and link over at Disquiet.com on March 6th for the free Pulse Detector MP3.

On March 7th, Bob Dorr at KUNI-FM played Winter Wind Chimes and part of Drift Higher from the Mark Rushton and Jon Harnish album on his show.

Pulse Detector, a new free MP3 by Mark Rushton

Mark Rushton - Pulse Detector
Originally sourced from a Buddha Machine
(5:11), 128kb-encoded MP3, 5MB

The loop is recorded from my Buddha Machine into a Zoom H2 as a 16-bit 44.1kHz WAV file, which was then transferred to my laptop and messed around with using audio software.

Pulse Detector has a lovely and hypnotic ambient dub nature to it.

Visit my Free MP3 page to pick up more free MP3s.

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July 31, 2007 Buzz, A Free Field Recording

July 31, 2007 Buzz, a free field recording from my backyard.

Recorded and edited by Mark Rushton
(13:53), 128kb-encoded MP3, about 13MB

Every night is different, but all nights are loud in the summer. The katydids keep going with their multi-layered, out-of-phase rhythms. The crickets buzz, although less often and with less intensity as the week before. There is only a slight hint of road noise from the north. A nearby neighbor has the central air running, which you can hear slightly on the right side. This was recorded using my old Sony minidisc recorder and a pair of binaural microphones. I only edited for time, provided the two fades, and turned it into a 128kb-encoded MP3. File under: field recording

The Buddha Machine and Buddhametrics

The New York Times recently featured a story by Rob Walker on the Buddha Machine, and it's makers, Omaha-native Christiaan Virant and fellow Beijing resident and musical partner Zhang Jian.

The story links over to Disquiet.com, Marc Weidenbaum's excellent web/blog/interview/MP3 linkage site. Disquiet has a post on Wednesday, August 1st of various Buddha Machine-related music and projects, including a link to a podcast I released in 2006 featuring the Buddha Machine.

Live From The Ambient Matyk Cafe with The Buddha Machine was a podcast I put out on March 20, 2006. 6 minutes of the podcast is devoted to improvised music I created on my laptop along with using the Buddha Machine at the Matyk Building in the New Bohemia section of downtown Cedar Rapids.

During the recording session at the Matyk Building, I did two takes of the track with the Buddha Machine. The second version was released as a free MP3 called Buddhametrics (live v2). You can download the track directly via this link. It's a 128kb-encoded MP3, 5 minutes and 53 seconds in length, or about 5.5MB.

Buddhametrics is basically a stripped down version of a rock/electronica track, Psychometrics with the addition of the Buddha Machine.

The original version of Psychometrics appears on my 2004 CD The Driver's Companion. It's also available at iTunes.

The Buzz, Part 2 - Free MP3

The Buzz, Part 2 - a free field recording MP3 from my backyard. Download or listen to it here.

The katydids are out in my neighborhood every night now (late July 2007), and since I have woods behind my house there's lots of them chattering away. Here's 6 minutes of the sound, along with numerous other buzzing and rhythmic insects. It's nature's orchestra. I like how the rhythms get off track and are imperfect, but are constantly interesting. In the background, because of a northerly wind, is ambient noise from Interstate 80. This was recorded using my old Sony minidisc recorder and a pair of binaural microphones. I only edited for time, provided the two fades, and turned it into a 128kb-encoded MP3. File under: field recording

Regeneration X is now on Last.fm

Regeneration X is now available for previewing at last.fm.

There's one free MP3 download ("Memory Trigger"), four full-length streaming previews ("Adsorption", "Brush Creek", "Post-Rock", and "Preemergence"), and the rest of the tracks have 30 second previews.

last.fm links over to the Regeneration X page at iTunes in case listeners want to buy the album or individual tracks.

Regeneration X is also available in CD format.

I'll be adding more tracks and albums to last.fm in the very near future.

New Free MP3 - Buddhametrics (live v2)

New free MP3.

It's called Buddhametrics (live v2).

Mellow live remix of my track Psychometrics, but with many of the rock loops taken out and replaced with the Buddha Machine. Recorded at the Ambient Matyk Cafe in March 2006.